Up to now, as a liquid jetting device for jetting a liquid to a target, there is an ink-jet recording apparatus that jets an ink droplet to paper to print an image or the like thereon. This ink-jet recording apparatus includes a jetting head (hereinafter, referred to as recording head), which is mounted on a carriage and reciprocates in a main scanning direction, and means for transporting a target (hereinafter, referred to as recording sheet) in a sub-scanning direction perpendicular to the main scanning direction, and jets a liquid droplet (hereinafter, referred to as ink droplet) from a recording head based on jetting data (hereinafter, referred to as printing data), whereby printing is performed with respect to the recording sheet. In most of the recording apparatus of this type mainly used for home use, each liquid tank (referred to as ink tank) for feeding ink to a recording head is configured so as to be attached/detached with respect to a carriage on which the recording head is mounted.
In a recording apparatus of an on-carriage type in which an ink tank is mounted on a carriage as described above, it is difficult to use an ink tank with a large capacity, and hence, in the case where an attempt is made to execute printing of a relatively large amount, it is necessary to replace an ink tank frequently. This not only requires the work for a replacement operation of a tank, but also increases a running cost.
Thus, for example, in the recording apparatus of this type used for a commercial purpose, a configuration of an off-carriage type is adopted in which an ink tank with a large capacity is placed on a body side of a recording apparatus, and ink is fed respectively to a recording head mounted on a carriage via a flexible liquid feed tube (hereinafter, referred to as ink feed tube) from the ink tank (for example, see Patent Document 1). Further, regarding a low-hardness thermoplastic material for an ink-jet printer, there is description in Patent Document 2.
Patent Document 1: JP 2003-320680 A
Patent Document 2: WO 03/027183